To the editor:

As we all have heard, Kids Connection day care/Preschool is being forced by the church to close its doors in as little as two months.

As a parent of children that go there, I am so saddened that such a wonderful thing to our community children will no longer be. Along with being sad, I am very angry. As parents, we were never even informed that there were “reasons” to close this facility, until after the closing announcements were already made.

The Kids Connection staff couldn’t even answer our questions because they were not even being properly informed of what was going on.  Couldn’t we have tried to maybe resolve these problems, if we had been informed of what was going on? Couldn’t we have come together as parents, or as a community to fix these things? Wouldn’t that have been better than to just quickly close the doors on such a wonderful, Christian-based program?

I’ve talked to many members of the church who have stated that they were never even informed of problems going on with this program, and if they had known, they don’t understand why they, as a church body, couldn’t have come together to resolve issues.

Is this really OK? Is this really fair?  I feel like, as a parent I don’t even have control of my own child here. Decisions regarding my child’s well-being, were decided by some people that I don’t even know! Were the people who made this decision even thinking of all of the children involved in this program? Did they know how much they loved going there every day?

Did they know that there is absolutely not enough home day care in this town to accommodate half of the kids that attend Kids Connection? Where are we supposed to take our kids when we have to work? During these hard economic times, are we expected to just quit our jobs because there is no adequate day care in this town? Where are we supposed to take our children to preschool, when the Headstart preschool is already full?

I know that if you don’t have little ones who go here or any ties to this program, then you might not care, but please put yourselves in our shoes. These are our children here.

As for the staff of this facility, they have been nothing but wonderful. Not only are our children safe and well taken care of, these staff members love these kids, like they were their own. I feel so sad for them to have to go through this and not even really know why.

I hope Hillsboro residents will see how much a proper day care/preschool is needed. Please help get something new going for these kids and all of the kids to come.

I hope the members of this church who feel like they didn’t have a say in this decision think long and hard about this and if they really want to be a part of a place where your voice doesn’t matter. I feel betrayed, mad, confused, and sad, and this will not be forgotten!

Chris and Mandi Bernhardt
Hillsboro